Pedestrian
by frooit
Summary: And Murphy really thought he was dead. ::incest::


**pedestrian**

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And Murphy really thought he was dead. That was it, boy. The last look at the sky, prayer and mumble, knees gone numb from thin carpeting in thin old churches. Kneel and repent, face down, sorrow, pity, blood flowing like words through your fingers. Last blink, drink, the last upside-down look at the world as you go down, down. Nowhere. He was never so lucky, he'd lie—he got the tunnel of light. People didn't make that up. It was the spiral, the tight flash, _slam_, air _gone_, and he was so sure—_so sure_—that he's wincing and cringing when his eyes open and he's not.

Not dead.

Not dead but hit by a fucking car.

Hit by a fucking town car. (Stop and have it explained as the kinds you're delighted to dent. A scratch here and there, a ding, an imperfection, a _flaw_. Sign of life. The flaw makes it real and completes delight, because now it has character. Because perfection is boring. Because when you're getting ribs and lungs and skin bruised in, tenderized—blooms of a colour like burnt violet—you can't help but hope you leave hell on that son of a bitch, because _fuck_. That's only fair. That's justice. Dented grill like the broken maw after a bar fight. Symmetry of bar fights. Beautiful chaos.)

Grace is just how square you can throw a punch, and all the power behind it. Grace isn't skidding back from sudden _smash_ and smacking pavement, and the lights twisting out in black wonder. No. Took all the grace (Grace, because we capitalize those things) to keep the car from driving over him as he lie, maybe. It would have been... Jesus. Could have been Connor praying for his immortal soul in the next church the two of them, father and son, duck in. The _please help us, priest_ skit and then welcoming cold pews, lines of quiet. Sneaking in so early maybe he'd even hear Connor. With the world just starting to speak up again, maybe he'd be able to hear his voice from wherever Saints go after... _After_. The anti-climactic yell (_whoa!_) that was Murphy meeting car, car meeting Murphy, and Connor completely out of the loop until seconds (ticking) snap and he's realizing what happened. What just scraped layers of skin off his brother's shoulder even through the coat and shirt.

**  
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They don't teach in church, they preach. They drill and frighten and dig these images into young minds. Young impressionable minds. _If you're a sinner, you'll be punished._ That's the lasting.

We'll pray that there's no God to punish us.

No easy introduction, no fast understanding. When you take your brother into the restrooms with you, for a moment, for a moment away from Da', and grind against him, into him (all that pent up _shit_ from days of running), until the tone cracks tile... you'll pray that there's no God to punish you and make a fuss.

Murphy didn't believe in God so much as he does now. It stings in the air against the skin that's been burned away. Slide and grind. Bits of his flesh grafted into the street, he'd bet, because he feels bits of the street grafted onto him (elbows and hips and the butts of his palms). He's being punished and he knows it. The first thing he sees when he wakes up is Da'. Grey beard, serious eyes, steadily blurring and fixing, blurring and fixing. Groans for _Conn_ the first ten seconds until he swallows and breathes air warm through blood-hot sinuses the next sixty. His pride comes back. It always does.

Springs up around this one, this man. Trying to make _him_ proud subconsciously, because that's what sons do with fathers, isn't it. Look what I can do, look what I did. Bites his lip so hard he almost forgets about the headache but only to realize some teeth are loose. _Loose teeth. How the fuck did that happen. And Jesus, fuck, and fuck, where's Connor..._ Mind like spinning wheels. Numb only terribly _fucking_ not numb—over sensetive. Burning friction, rising fire, sparks from coliding granite, singe, and.

"_Connor_." (Scratched, like tires riding rims.)

He can't help it.

Somewhere it's Da' saying, "He's awake, ya know."

So fade to black.

**  
**

They're both fifteen and Connor has a cold. Or, a _sore throat_, to be exact. Face still twisted from the taste of the medicine Ma' forced on him. Sticks his tongue out at his brother and it's green._ Share_, Murph insists. Imitates Connor, pressing his tongue up to his, over his. Starts sucking and licking and tasting, hands on his shoulders, and this is a memory.

_"That's fuckin' ridiculous."_

Eyes open. Connor's voice.

Or maybe a dream.

"Murphy." His voice again (still) hard and trying to be softer, grating like knives on silk. The name he was given at birth spoken from a mouth he can't quite see yet, but can picture. Too well. He'd be accused of being able to picture his brother's mouth, lips, and smile too well. The way they'll look after kissed, bit, angry, swallowing cock, wide, used. The full on _grin_, and he's thinking about sex and he's delirious.

"_Murph_." Worry.

He heard worry.

"Suck." Which isn't want he meant at all. _Let me rephrase that_. "What..."

For the first ten seconds Connor's just feeling him. Leaning close and touching his forehead to his forehead. Entire head feels detached, down the river, caught in the reeds. Guesses and assumes Da's gone, or in a different room, because that touching quickly shifts to the most contained kisses they've shared. Yes, quite possibly ever. Nothing that's meant to be pleasurable just _felt_. Comfort. His eyes are clear when Connor leans back. Can we call that a miracle, please? But.

Suppose he died right then. _That_ would be his punishment, the real thing. Everything else, other sins and atones (cars, brothers, blood, bruises, fixation), pale and distant to the world darkening around Connor. It's Connor present as you die. It doesn't sound so dramatic like this. Eye lids heavy, heavy, dropping, closed. Suppose, though, it was just the pain killers and he wakes up to the sun on his face. Alright, all breathing, all living for another day.

He yawns and feels his jaw click, his eyes water.

_Breathe in deep, and cleanse away our sins._

**  
**

Consciousness like scattering butterflies, birds, wings, flight. Sore as he moves, shifts, turns to a side that isn't numb from this. Lying, getting _better_, _mending_, aftermath. Sucking in slow breath because he can feel every rib that's off-colour protesting, protesting, shrieking against the stretch.

The look in Connor's eyes is something he hasn't quite seen before. He won't say he's afraid, worried, curious, edgy, and so on, and so on, over that—it's all almost normal. Different angles. The subtle differences that slam inches down between you. Brothers, blood (so much of the same), and that look because you're growing apart. And Connor knows it.

"Saw it fuckin' happen."

Connor looks like he'd rather not have said it.

Trying to slowly take it back as he's turning the tube of Neosporin between his fingers.

Murphy's seen his face in the bathroom mirror and knows it's scratched, raw. (Like he knows Connor wants to kiss him again but can't quite, no, not yet, Da's just in the other room, might walk in, see. _See._) Solid enough now to get up and see the criss-crossed way the bandages have been layered, and layered, over skin scraped and oozing blood thick and thin. First degree friction burns. No space stained through with red, or even the pink, tainted. Wide off-white clean and new. Underneath these are vibrant bruises and repeated marks, scored with the red that hasn't yet made its way through. He's been here three days.

"Fuck." He's croaking it out and Connor's looking back up, knee bouncing, nerves, nervous, not right. Connor isn't saying what he means to say, wants to say; what he's saying without saying, skirting around. (_Sorry. I'm sorry, fuck._) Speaking volumes, alright. Like heat off his skin. It's a whole other car slamming into him when he walks out then. Right then. Long strides of legs around the sides of his bed (hotel, motel, yellowgreen sheets, springs snapping through the mattress, has to turn back over to watch). Takes his coat from the back of the chair, his cigarettes from the table, gives another look over his shoulder, through his longer hair, door knob twisting in his hand, and that's it. He's out. Needs a break.

How the world looks when every breath is tight in your chest and people are walking out the door. Can smell the world through it opening. Rush of air too clean to be Boston's. Slow blinking. Doesn't need to wonder or ask. The smell's gone as soon as the door's closed. He watches the ceiling and counts the moments. _This was the day Connor walked out._ Too caught up in the way it looked to... say what the fuck ever. Get his two cents in. Get _something_ in.

**  
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Tire treads twisted through the road like ink through skin. Inverted, backwards, not raised from the surface, epidermis, but dug in, cutting. Scars across the land and the ends of his fingers. His ribs are bruised. Fact. Like the run in with the front end of a Buick wouldn't do it. Nasty rising purple, cradled between each bone, over and under, it hurts to breathe deep. Vertigo.

Connor's fucking him in his dream (memory) and the air's tight, thick. Fresh tattoos, the high of being closer to feeling like each other, one another. The sting, ache, blood seeping out slow, slow, rising, _bellowing_. Felt a bit cliché, but the backseat of a friend's car was the best they could do then. Clinging, gasping, windows white light fog. He was hit by a car, and is pretty sure he had been _this_ close to biting his tongue in half as it happened, as the dream curls back to reality. Air thickening and tightening in his chest, wrapped, like that'll keep his chance intact.

The last time Connor said_ love you_ was then. To _a__é__quitas_ new in ink.

Everyone and his brother gets caught up in the moment.

**  
**

He said he wasn't afraid. And he wasn't. Because he comes back. Connor. It's his brother, the twin shit continued, of course he would. No doubt, no worries, no sweat. (The twin shit unknown, he's fucking that brother.) Wasn't out long, and couldn't have been. Known faces and pictures posted up and on the morning News. Has a new lighter torching his cigarettes now when he goes to. Blinking at the smoke and then breathing it in. The things he's noticed—he's smoking too much. A lot of lately and before the car thing.

"Da's out."

He was hit by a fucking car. Of all the things to knock Murphy MacManus down, it was some guy taking a turn too fast and fate. Fate, or God, or punishment. Or aren't they one in the same...

"You know..." He isn't surprised at how thick his voice is. He _is_ surprised that he's moving, sitting up, reaching for him. Connor turns his head up and _hmms_, not quite reaching back.

"Feel like I've been hit by a fuckin' car," and scoffs. And then Connor is reaching, and Murphy realizes maybe they've been thinking the same thing.

_What are you goin' to do if I die?_

Teenagers and arguing; after school smoking; notoriously cool kids.

_Go on livin' without a stupid fuckin' brother._

But they both knew he was lying. Like maybe Connor couldn't tell lies to Murphy. They say twins can finish each other's sentences... This was their twin thing. Their mind meld. Murphy hit him in the shoulder anyway, slipping off the stone wall. It's about putting up a front. It's about still being able to get sick of each other. It's about...

Back to present, Connor's sucking on the underside of his jaw. Warm, wet and slow licking, flicking, grazing teeth here and there, holding himself up by hands on Murphy's thigh and the mattress. It's the pressure that has him hissing, wincing in good ways, multi-tasking and undoing his zipper, finger tips over hip bones, belly, lower. One palm moving around under to flatten over his spine, lifting him into connection, meaning. It's just right. The stiffness in his limbs, muscles that doesn't float away but burns down.

As far as they get is Connor's hands down Murphy's jeans. Head leaned back into pillow, mouth open but eyes closed, wet gasping, slippery grip. Not much more than a sigh when he comes. And you know what it feels like... That feels like being forgiven. Crack's healing up. Exhales, and doesn't inhale again until he sees Connor's face. And that's just the icing on your proverbial cake.

"Love you."

Murphy hiccups.

"Aye. Fuck. Yeah."

Not dead, not fatally punished. At least not yet.

It's about Connor. It's about being able to fix up better than anyone else.


End file.
